Friday, June 12, 2009

Richard Brown Defends Chiropractic

SINCE the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) decided to sue science writer Simon Singh for libel, scientists and journalists have unleashed a torrent of criticism against chiropractic. Much of this is misinformed and needs to be corrected.

Many critics - including Edzard Ernst (New Scientist, 30 May, p 22) - hark back to the origins of chiropractic. This has the clear intention of suggesting that modern chiropractors cling to the 19th century idea that spinal misalignments are responsible for the majority of diseases. While a tiny minority retain this view, most are aware that such claims have long since been debunked.

This is the same Richard Brown who works at The Landsdown Clinic in Gloucestershire, UK. Here's a list of the treatments they offer at that clinic ....

Aromatherapy

Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils, extracts from the flowers, fruits, leaves, stems and roots of flowers, shrubs and trees. The therapeutic use of aromatic oils dates back to ancient times and was particularly popular in Ancient Egypt and the Far East. Aromatherapy massage is a gentle, flowing treatment that may help to relieve pain and alleviate tension and fatigue. The use of essential oils creates a feeling of calming energy and has a powerful effect on both body soul.

Reflexology

Reflexology is a complementary therapy that uses pressure points on the feet to help activate the circulation and nervous system. By using the feet as a map of the whole body, reflexology consists of the application of manual techniques to enhance a state of physical and mental balance.

Therapeutic Massage

Therapeutic massage is the use of hands to manipulate soft tissues of the body, particularly muscles. It can be used for relaxation, stimulation or rehabilitation of the whole body or part of it. Particularly effective in managing stress-related tension, massage promotes suppleness, aids flexibility and stimulates circulation. Therapeutic massage may be beneficial for a range of body systems and as well as treating muscular aches and pains, it can be useful in helping circulation and digestion.

Hot Stone Therapeutic Massage

Despite it being one of the fastest-growing massage techniques, hot stone therapy is an ancient healing art. It uses a combination of warm stones and various massage techniques which provide deep therapeutic effects and create harmony and balance.

Hopi Ear Candling

Being a hollow tube, the centre of an ear candle is simply a column of air rather than a solid mass. When lit at the top, the rising air column inside the candle begins to heat up. As the candle burns down, it continues to heat up the top of the rising air column of the centre of the candle. The rising air column creates a very mild suction action at the base, which help loosen compacted earwax. This experience is a gentle, relaxing treatment for everyone, including children.

Indian Head Massage

Indian Head Massage is a traditional touch therapy, which has been practised for thousands of years. It is gentle, yet firm and powerful, therapeutic massage of the shoulders, arms, neck, scalp, ears, hair and face which will leave you feeling soothed and rebalanced. This is an extremely enjoyable and deeply relaxing treatment that gives you a sense of calm and relaxation.

I wonder if the British Richard Brown, who is never referred to as "doctor" on his website, would approve of the American "Dr." Richard Brown? I wonder if the American "Dr." Brown is aware of the fact that some of these 19th century claims have been debunked?

8 comments
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Actually, the Indian Head Massage is a very nice treatment. An Indian woman taught it to me. I never considered it to have any strange assocations with a new age treatment, it just provides a gentle stress relieving interaction.

I hate it when people say that therapeutic massage promotes circulation. No, it doesn't. Light exercise increases circulation WAY more than any massage will. Irks me, but it's what I expect from a place that offers that other ridiculous shit on the menu.

This has the clear intention of suggesting that modern chiropractors cling to the 19th century idea that spinal misalignments are responsible for the majority of diseases. While a tiny minority retain this view, most are aware that such claims have long since been debunked.

If chiropractors are treating people with methods other than chiropractic, that is not an ad for chiropractic.

Some may have given up the old-fashioned, debunked traditional chiropractic theories, but they have not advanced to real medicine. I wonder why Brown does not make use of the "kiss the boo-boo" technique.

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

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The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

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Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
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Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
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Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.